


I'm Still Here

by Frostbearer



Series: 50 themes - Vergil & Dante [37]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst Satan strikes again, Blood and Gore, Explicit Language, I know I'm as shocked as you guys, M/M, Post DMC3, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Twincest, happy ending!, pre DMC1, with a dash of post DMC5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27562339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostbearer/pseuds/Frostbearer
Summary: Seven months after the fall of the Temen-Ni-Gru Dante kept himself buried in work to avoid thinking. An unexpected visitor brought memories to the surface which Dante had hoped would forever stay deeply locked away in his head.
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Series: 50 themes - Vergil & Dante [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/423490
Kudos: 55





	I'm Still Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ardens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardens/gifts).



> Three weeks later the birthday fic is done... I know how to keep a schedule, I swear.

Ever since the fall of the Temen Ni Gru Dante had been proverbially buried in work. Business was a-booming, so to speak. Once people had learned that the red-clad gun-toting swordsman had been endlessly taking out the monsters - never _demons_ , that concept too foreign and _out_ there, hushed whispers of monsters as if that made them a little more human and less terrifying, people had been swarming to the shop, his phone going warm. An article in the local papers with his picture in it hadn’t exactly made the phone ring any less. Often people commented things about how the demons - sorry, _monsters,_ “had sprung up overnight.” Which Dante knew was a load of horse-shit, but he wasn’t going to look said gift horse in the mouth. It paid his bills and meant he didn’t have to read about people dying due to his brother’s stupid ass idea to raise a portal between the Demon world and Earth. Win/win.

Vergil… nowadays it was a name he never uttered out loud, never spoke about. Those around him had learned to never mention the elder son of Sparda. It didn’t mean that the annoying bastard wasn’t on the hunter’s mind however he kept it inside for those rare nights when he didn’t crawl back home at fuck o’clock in the morning, clothes drenched in demon bits and blood. Then he allowed himself to remember. Only then did he think about the only remainder of his family somewhere thousands and thousands of miles away in the demon realm. Allowed himself to doubt his own choice to stay in the human world.

 _It never ended well_. Thankfully - or however one might now look at it - work didn’t let up.

After the first couple months Dante had managed to clean out most of what had escaped from the tower but demons, Dante had learned, were a bit like rats. Once they smelled food they weren’t about to give it up, and those bastards just kept coming back. 

Maybe seven months had passed when there was a loud banging at the front doors of the Devil May Cry. As it was before noon the doors were firmly locked and the Crimson Hunter passed out in bed after having come home back in the early hours of dawn. Demons keeping a good old nine to five schedule? Nah, fam. The forces of evil, it seemed, didn’t care about such petty things as keeping a proper schedule and were active at any time of the day’s 24 hours. But for some strange reason Dante very often ended up having a dusk til dawn schedule. Fun times. 

Still the hunter’s senses were far too honed not to wake up at the sound of banging at the door, swearing under his breath as he stumbled his way downstairs, a pair of trousers hastily thrown on, smothering a yawn before opening the door. The first thing that greeted him was boxes. A large moving box blocked his view of the person holding it but the height made him gauge that the person was far shorter than him, and quite portly. A quick glance at the porch alerted him to another two boxes. What the-? Scratching at the back of his head he wondered if he’d missed something here, some delivery or was this maybe some kinda payment?

The box was somewhat lowered, revealing the face of a man with dark brows so tightly knit that they could have passed for a unibrow. Eyes practically spitting fire and Dante had to mentally go over who he possibly could have pissed off enough to warrant this, drawing a blank. 

“About damned time! Took you long enough.” Words spat out so rapid-fire that it had Dante quirk a brow. Leaning his side against the doorframe, hand holding the door half shut.

“Sorry I’m not up at the crack of the dawn. Those pesky beasts don’t usually keep regular office hours. What crawled up your ass and died?” He knew he shouldn’t be this rude to a potential client but it was too early for this. 

It had the desired effect though. Facial colour rising to a nice shade of puce, and Dante half contemplated whether or not to provoke him to see if he’d actually turn purple from anger. Depended on what this bozo wanted.

“You’re obviously his brother.” Tone acerbic and it took half a second before the words sunk in, all humour and ideas of playing around fading to leave Dante stone-faced. That alien stillness and lack of movement which tended to unnerve people around him and betrayed his origins enveloping him. While he saw the other man’s mouth move it was all a tinny staticky sound, his brain stuck on looping “brother” over and over again. The young hunter unexpectedly slammed with that feeling of abandonment and to a certain degree shame over that he’d had to stop Vergil. That what his twin had done had been a stupid as hell idea and _what the hell had Vergil been thinking_? That still bugged him and wouldn’t leave him alone. Getting that power wouldn’t make the demons give up. Wouldn’t bring mom back. All it could possibly do would be to give him enough juice to take on Mundus, but Vergil wouldn’t be stupid enough to take him on alone. Would he?

It was something Dante had asked himself time and time again during those long nights when he ended up pacing the shop, an almost drained bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand idly twirled between long fingers. What the hell had gone through Vergil’s mind in those last moments? Dante still to a point regretted having to say the words even though he knew in his heart of hearts that he sure as hell would have delivered that final blow and it _irked_ him when later realising that Vergil had held back- that he could have killed Dante and had chosen not to.

More than a minute of stunned silence had passed when the stout man seemed to process that his ranting wasn’t even being registered, instead opting to shove the box he’d carried into Dante’s chest, the hunter catching it more by reflex, not processing what he’d done before glancing down at it. It was unexpectedly heavy, but with the lid closed on it Dante couldn’t tell what was in it.

“What’s this?”

“Your asshole brother left this in his flat before he up and disappeared. By all rights I should have sold or thrown this away or hell - charge you for even bringing this over.”

Dante sensed another oncoming rant and quickly interjected. “Wait. This is Vergil’s stuff?” That he managed to say the name without his breath catching in his throat privately made Dante congratulate himself. Distantly aware of how his heartbeat picked up its already frantic stringendo. Shit. Shit. This was bad. This was really bad. Why couldn’t Vergil just _leave him alone_ or at least have the decency to only plague his nightmares? Vergil had made his choice so why did he continue to haunt Dante like this?

The only good thing about the words was that it appeared to have calmed the other man down somewhat, giving a gruff nod.

“Yeah, like I told you. I’m his landlord. Saw your mug in the paper a while back and caught the familiarity. Since he’s no longer payin’ I’m getting rid of his things. Either take ‘em or toss them because I ain’t bringing them back with me.”

This left the white-haired man in a curious situation, for a few seconds not even registering that this stranger had brought them over without actually expecting payment but had… done out of some sense of obligation?

Mouth moving slow, tongue feeling unusually large and unwieldy. “...Why?”

Were the sounds in the nearby area coming out as if made from across a great gorge or was it just Dante? As one who was all too used to being able to pick up sounds from half a mile away everything now appeared distant and how was Dante supposed to act and feel in this moment? Also had it really been this cold just minutes ago? The wind must have picked up or something, and Dante couldn’t understand why it seemed like the sun had just dimmed. _Shock_ , a tiny part of his brain helpfully supplied, though the majority of him couldn’t process it.

It nonetheless seemed that the human understood what it was he meant by that short word, because he didn’t question or ask him to elaborate.

“I used to live a block from the Love Planet.”

The words jolted Dante back into the present. Love Planet…? As in the strip joint over by the Thirteenth Avenue? 

It was as if someone had flipped a switch with the way the world came back into focus with crystal clarity, sounds deafening for half a second before Dante’s brain caught up with him and filtered it back to normal, greyish blue eyes lasering in, categorising and identifying the stout man as someone he’d seen once, maybe a week or two before shit had hit the fan and the neighbourhood had turned into demonville.

Eyes heavy with knowledge of how badly that area had been hit by the tower, more like how it had crumbled under its own weight a few weeks after the events since there was no magical mystical power left to support the gate between worlds. It had been sheer dumb luck that Lady and Dante had spent the past weeks evacuating people since it was _really fucking stupid_ to live that close to a nest of thousands of demons just waiting to come creeping out after dark to snack on those stupid enough to not _run run run run_ away. That Dante always heard the word _run_ in his mother's desperate tone was neither here nor there.

“Ah. Figures.” Sardony tingeing the hunter’s voice, not even consciously registering that he’d shifted his head in a way which had his hair falling down in front of his eyes to shield them from view.

The other man seemed to at last register that Dante wasn’t in the mood to chat and with a final huff looked around at the boxes. “Well, kid. Do whatever ya want with this. My debt here is paid.” Another nod before turning off and getting into a truck Dante hadn’t quite been paying attention to. Not that the hunter really was even now, too busy reflecting over that the final belongings of his twin who had ( _abandoned him_ ) decided that the human realm wasn’t his home. 

A large part of him wanted to dump the boxes there and then. Just throw them the everloving hell away. Another couldn’t let go. An annoyed glare down at the brown moving box as if it’d reveal what Dante should be doing with it and its siblings. 

Against better knowing he brought that first box inside, depositing it on his desk with a heavy thud and almost instantly regretted it as the motion disturbed the lid enough for it to open and reveal the contents of the box. It was as if something physically locked Dante’s muscles in place as he became aware of two things; first the scent - leather, old books, sulphuric ash, the metallic and acidic scent of something he knew came with anyone of demonic origins and under that a certain citrusy _something_ Dante could never explain but meant VERGIL. Pupils blew wide, only the barest ring of mercurial grey with memories flashing by quickly on his retina; _them as children and Dante bothering Vergil for sparring, the song of steel as swords clashed, a snowball fight with Dante throwing an arm over Vergil’s shoulder - the two of them laughing, long bygone arguments over petty things, Dante biting down on a scream - only a faint sound of pain trickling through as he did his best to remain still while Vergil carefully carved a V into his shoulder with a purred “you belong to me.”_

The speed with which Dante backed away was such that when the back of his knees hit the couch he simply fell back onto it, limbs all akimbo while staring at the box as if it contained a vicious demon. And in a sense it did. He was too sober for this. Far too sober for this. Eyes wild he looked everywhere, _anywhere_ except at the seemingly innocent cardboard box, trying to ground himself. No booze in the shop, right. He’d intentionally tried his damndest to not have any for the past month but holy hell he didn’t want to be sober now. Wetting dry lips, Adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to swallow down the bile building in the back of his throat.

Maybe it was a few minutes later, maybe an hour but eventually Dante managed to unlock himself from his position on the couch, approaching the desk not unlike how one would approach a dangerous animal.

The closer he got the more he became aware of the second thing he’d noticed when the lid had flown open. Vergil’s violin. Something his twin had held almost as close as the Yamato.

Dante could all too clearly remember the last time he had seen it in Vergil’s hands, could in his head still hear the deceptively soft rasp of the bow over strings as Vergil had stood over by the window late one night dressed only in a pair of slacks while Dante lay half-asleep on the bed, his twin illuminated by the moonlight, seemingly deep in thought while long fingers strummed up some melody written long ago which had made something inside Dante’s chest clench tight with a mix of sorrow and pain. He’d never interrupted these more than rare moments, had known better, but thrown back into that moment Dante recalled it as the last time they’d been together. It was in a way a signal of the end of an era as by the time Dante had woken up the room had been empty, Vergil gone as if from some far off dream… and when they’d next met only pain and anger remained.

Cardboard lid almost violently slammed to cover glossy wood, Dante gritting his teeth before stomping down into the basement and the furthermost corner. If one could throw something gently that was exactly what Dante did, the contents deposited firmly, stomping up to get the other two boxes. Much as he wanted - no _longed_ to throw it out it was a part of a bygone era, memories, much like the heavy weight around his throat. Heavy feet stomping up to get the other two boxes and repeating the process, finding an old tarp and throwing it over them - as if it would make the heavy presence go away.

It didn’t.

Dante spent the next couple weeks either fighting until he passed out or blackout drunk, trying and almost managing to convince himself that what had happened had just been some figment of imagination. It almost worked. 

More than once he contemplated setting them on fire. One time he actually got a can of gasoline. It sat on a shelf for over a decade untouched. As the years passed by and Dante made a point whenever he went into the basement to never look in that direction things started piling up around that tarp, everything from things clients had given him to an old drumset. Still his nose would occasionally twitch when he came too close, thinking he could pick up his brother’s scent faintly. Every time it happened he pretended as if nothing. He never managed to fool himself.

\---

“...Why do you have this in your possession?” Vergil’s confused and dare he say it - suspicious tone of voice woke Dante from his nap over by his desk. Years had gone by, the Qliphoth risen and fallen and the twins had returned to the human world. For better or worse one might say that they were at peace - or as much as they could be. 

Sky-blue eyes blinked blearily up at where Vergil stood just by the other side of the desk, and hadn’t it been for that Dante noticed how the Darkslayer seemed to _nervously (?!)_ shift from one foot to the other he might have opted to feign sleep. That was until his eyes drifted down to what Vergil held in his hands, his own heart skipping a beat and he _knew_ by the narrowing of mercurial eyes that Vergil had noticed that. The violin, seemingly so innocent, carefully carved in maple, spruce and willow. At once the air was charged with an electrical current yet Dante feigned ignorance, broad shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. 

“It was dumped here long ago. Never got around to throw it out.” The underlying _you know why_ heavy between them. 

The Darkslayer piercing him with a look as if trying to read whatever went on inside Dante’s head. After a long moment giving him an unimpressed look. “Really now?” 

Rolling his eyes Dante jutted his chin in the direction of the basement. “Couple boxes down there got your stuff. Never went through it. Either throw it out or whatever.”

And that concluded the conversation as Vergil set down the case almost reverently on the couch, his step moving in the direction of the basement. Dante gave the old violin a long look, for the first time in many years not feeling that twinge of pain.

Much like _that_ night long ago he fell asleep listening to Vergil play the violin, but unlike so long ago when the sun crested the sky and tired eyes opened it wasn’t to the sight of an empty room but to Vergil’s bare back, his twin lying on his side still deep in the realm of Morpheus.

Maybe the past wasn’t doomed to be repeated. Maybe things could be better. Maybe not. Who the fuck cared? Flinging an arm around Vergil’s waist he curled closer, nose buried against the back of his neck. It was a matter for later. Much later. 

Owari

**Author's Note:**

> Despite that the twins have blue-grey eyes I traditionally tend to write that Dante’s lean more towards blue while Vergil’s are a mercurial grey. When I shift that it’s very, very intentional.
> 
> One day I will not mention any mythological references when writing fic. That day is not today.
> 
> Yep, I am very much implying that the violin in question is a Stradivarius. Because Vergil is that kinda pompous shit.


End file.
